Opiseutel

Erma and I are living extremely close to the Korean Language Institute (KLI) of Yonsei University, where we will be taking classes beginning next Monday. It's less than a five-minute walk from our apartment building to the classroom building.

I say apartment building, but that's not exactly what it is. These are furnished studio apartments, originally designed for business people on lengthy stays away from home. (Erma's father rented one when he had a temporary year-long assignment in another city.) They are pricier than many other living options. Ours is rather bland -- it won't win any prizes for character -- but quite large, modern, and comfortable.

Our particular "apateu" (아파트, Korean for apartment) is an OfficeTel. The word is a blend of "office" and "hotel". In Korean, though, it's called opiseutel (오피스텔). Korean has no "F" sound, so when pronouncing foreign words with "F" they generally substitute a "P" sound.

Here's a view of the back of the building, the side we usually enter on. As you can see, the building is quite new.


The hallways are quite nondescript and institutional-looking.


There's this fancy security system. No keys. Every apartment has its own security code that is entered on a numeric keypad. The thing beeps at you when it opens and beeps some other kind of beeps when it closes. If the door is opened, the closed partway, then opened again, an alarm sounds. It's not clear to us if we can get out should there be an electrical outage.


Notice also the camera set into the wall to the left of the door. If someone buzzes, we can use the closed-circuit TV screen inside the apartment to see who it is.


Oh, it's Erma. I guess she can come in.

As I said, it's a pretty simple studio apartment. Here's the bed-al area. The bottom row of windows opens, although only the left-most one has a screen on it. (That's important, as mosquitos are plentiful.) Against the windows you can see our clothes-drying rack.


We're lucky to have a corner apartment. In addition to the south-facing windows by the bed, we've also got these west-facing windows by the desk. (That door leads to a closet in which is housed the monstrous air-conditioning unit and the gas water-heating furnace.)

In the foreground is the little table separating the living space from the kitchen. It appears that breakfast (toast toasted in a dry frying pan and mandarin oranges) is served.


The kitchen is small but serviceable.


Under the range in the kitchen there is a clothes washer/dryer. We haven't had good luck with the drying function, so we expect to hang-dry our clothes.


The bathroom is pretty nice too. The shower is roomy and works very well.



As you can see, the place is really quite fancy. Take a look at the air-conditioning vent in the ceiling. It cools the whole place down in about 3 minutes.


There's an underground parking garage. That's where the recycling and trash bins are. From left to right: paper, trash, cans, plastic, glass. Food waste is in the little blue can.


We had our first home-cooked meal in the apartment on Monday night. There's frozen potstickers (aka gyoza 餃子, aka jiǎozi 饺子, aka mandu 만두, aka Peking ravioli) with a garlic-soy dipping sauce; two kinds of kimchi; a tofu-green pepper stir-fry, and seasoned crisp seaweed (aka kim 김, aka laver).


It's not clear how much cooking we'll be doing. We have limited ingredients and a limited number of kitchen tools. On top of that, it looks like eating out may be cheaper than buying groceries.